Viridor proposal would turn Cardiff into South Wales waste capital

LetsRecycle reports that:

Plans to develop a new incinerator in Cardiff have come under fire because of concerns it will not be limited to burning non-recyclable waste. Waste firm Viridor has been selected as preferred partner by the owners of a site near the Cardiff docks to take forward the £150 million project to build a “waste management and resource recovery facility”.

According to a letter from Cardiff Friends of the Earth local people are concerned that the proposed facility would be over-sized, as 350,000 tonnes per annum equates to some 2.5 times the amount of residual waste Cardiff produces. Read about this and other concerns on the Cardiff incinerator blog.

A Barry and Vale Friends of the Earth summary statement includes the following:

The Viridor incinerator proposed for Cardiff Bay:
• its capacity would be 350 000 tonnes per annum (commercial plus domestic);
• its electricity output would be 30MW (max), and heat might be supplied to ‘120 potential users’;
• its turnkey cost is estimated at £150 million (principal contractor would be Cnim);
• fly-ash (5% of input weight) would be sent to Wingmore Farm hazardous waste site (Cheltenham) and bottom ash (25-30% of input) would be used ‘as a secondary aggregate’;
• waste transport by road would be in 7 tonne trucks for local waste and 20 tonners from further out.

The proposed incinerator would make Cardiff the Waste Capital of South Wales
1. The proposal is for mass-burn incineration ( ~20% electrical efficiency) producing an immense
amount of waste heat (~ 60MW) appropriate for only a major industrial user. Viridor could never sell more than a fraction of this heat – thus combined heat-and-power (mandatory these days) is on paper only.
2. Over the anticipated 25-year contract, the 350,000 tonnes/yr capacity will far exceed totals of residual domestic waste (currently 350,000 tonnes from the five Project Gwyrdd counties) once levels of recycling/ composting, including of Cardiff’s food-waste, increase. When such recycling levels are boosted to ~70%, residual waste tonnage would shrink to under 120,000 tonnes p.a., assuming waste arisings reduce or stabilise as present trends (SEE NOTE). To make up the tonnage, Viridor plans to input huge amounts of industrial waste, presumably imported from a wide area. Councils drawn into such long-term incinerator contracts such as at Crymlyn Burrows and Newhaven have been badly stung but are still trapped.
3. The bottom ash contains leachable metals and may well be classed as hazardous. Not only the 20,000 tonnes fly-ash but perhaps 40,000 tonnes of bottom ash would have to go to hazardous waste landfill, so the five counties would have to provide one. Moreover, bottom ash is disliked for construction purposes – only half present production finds a market – so another 50,000 tonnes would need to be landfilled.

Though for Cardiff Viridor are offering old-style incineration, in Manchester they are proposing what they claim to be “innovative” state-of-the-art Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) facilities with Anaerobic Digestion producing green electricity and In-Vessel Composters. Their MBT system, however, would produce refuse-derived fuel to feed the huge Runcorn waste-burner (newly permitted) and not the better environmental solution of stabilised residue for landfill / land reclamation as in Lancashire (Global Renewables) or Dorset (New Earth Solutions).

NOTE Talking up the waste problem
Council officers have, along with Hyder and the waste industry, assumed a 4% per year waste growth, when actual waste arisings are stagnant or hardly rising (~1% per yr). In 2004, with 10% recycling, Cardiff landfilled 167,000 tonnes MSW (of 184,000t total). Switching to Wheelie bins has worsened the situation, but the present 196,000t total includes 30% recycling (137,000t to landfill). The new food waste collection will remove 10-15%. Reaching the level of 70% recycling/composting would leave only 60,000t/yr. The figure for the five Project Gwyrdd Counties pro rata – ie. from Caerphilly, Monmouth, Newport, Cardiff and the Vale – would be less than 120,000t/yr.

Also see Sorting Residual Waste: A guide for councils